Copper Adjustment, Cont.

Copper last week was available to consumers at 14-c-, 22% cheaper than it had been offered since April 1929. But it was knowledge that consumers had started no rush to buy. Instead, viewing the large surplus stocks of copper on hand they waited, hinted that perhaps at 12-c- they might consider entering the market.

While consumers waited, producers conferred. In Manhattan was M. Fernand Pisart, managing director of the Societe Generale des Minerals, the Belgian outlet lor the Katanga mines of Africa. Although producers insisted M. Pisart's visit was merely a routine one, many observers interpreted it as a crisis in the affairs of Copper Exporters, Inc., international price-controlling combine. When Copper Exporters was organized, its president Cornelius Kelley of Anaconda Copper Mining Co. optimistically stated that its purpose was to keep the price adjusted to day-to-day conditions in Europe. European consumers, long unwilling to pay 18-c- for copper, now grudgingly purchasing a minimum at 14-c-, feel this policy has been violated. In retaliation they have found a weapon--Africa--to wave at the U. S. copper powers.

African copper has been rapidly changing from a shadowy threat to a solid giant looming on the horizon. In 1916 the copper mines of Africa yielded 43,876 tons mined at high cost by inefficient natives. By 1923 the figure had risen to 80,410 short tons. Last year's production is estimated to have reached 142,599 tons. During this time modern machinery has supplanted hand labor to a great extent, railroads have been built. Now for the first time, African copper is a subject in all conversations regarding the metal's future.

While U. S. Producers were conferring with M. Pisart last week, executives of African copper companies were gathering in London. A major topic was cooeperation in smelting. Katanga (Union Miniere Haut Katanga) is now the only African Company with smelting facilities but Roan Antelope is building a smelter, and three other companies (N'Kana, N'Changa Mufalira) expect to follow.

Although U. S. capital is thought to own around 35% of African copper producing companies, the control is definitely European. It will be increasingly difficult for a group in Manhattan to set prices unless those prices are maintained by African companies. While the Manhattan meeting of last week was taking place, M. Pisart might well have noticed with interest that Chile Copper Co., Anaconda-controlled, reduced its dividend from $3.50 to $3, thereby reduced Anaconda's income by $2,000,000; that practically all copper stocks touched new lows on the Exchange; that independent speculators were said to be offering 2,500,000 lb. at 13 1/2-c-; that Anaconda reduced its miners' pay 25-c- a day; that complete accounts of Rio Tinto Co.'s annual meeting in London last fortnight contained the speech of its chairman, Sir Aukland Geddes, in which he told with dramatic pleasure of how he and friends had defeated a scheme whereby U. S. interests (probably American Smelting & Refining Co., Guggenheim Co.) tried to gain control of Northern Rhodesian copper deposits.

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